A Beautiful Mind

By: Sylvia Nasar

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

This is the powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. This book is the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and directed by Ron Howard.

“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”

Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius, who was already a legend by age thirty, when he slipped into madness, and who—thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community—emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution.

The inspiration for an Academy Award–winning movie, Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.

©1998 Sylvia Nasar (P)1999 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A Beautiful Mind tells a moving story and offers a remarkable look into the arcane world of mathematics and the tragedy of madness." ( New York Times Book Review)
"Nasar tells a story of triumph, tragedy, and enduring love." ( Library Journal)

Very... Thorough

That author spent a very long time on irrelevant topics, I very much doubt one has to know, say, the entire history of Princeton University to understand John Nash's story. Uses the word 'ostensibly' five times a chapter.

Good story, bad production

The story is interesting, on both human and intellectual levels, but the production quality detracted from my enjoyment. The production was poorly cut and edited, and the text repeated...repeatedly! In fact, the repeated sections became so frequent, I began to think I might be losing my mind! Recommendation: read the book, watch the movie, or find a different audio version. The story is worth the effort.

Highly recommended

The book was written in a satisfying manner. The talk about John's work, personal life, and the environment he lived in, were well balanced.

Several parts repeated

I loved the way the author tells us the story, however the audio is not good, there are several parts where the audio repeat fragments of the book and after the second time keeps going with the next fragment. I screenshoted some of these mistakes in case someone wants to correct this.

Not my normal read

My usual books started as epic fantasies. As of the last year and a half I have been mixing in many spiritual books. I bought this book because it was on sale a few months back. Needless to say it didn’t really fit with my normal reads so I sat on it for over two months. Down to my final two unread books in my library, I decided to start reading.
The first couple of chapters take a little while building a portrait. They are slow but necessary. I don’t know when it happened but somewhere along the line I began enjoying it and found myself wanting to keep listening even though I had arrived at work.
I admit I have a bit of an obsessive personality but truly believe Nasar has put together a good story based upon the true life of a man that most would have looked at and thought a pompous mathematician. His story really is thought provoking and Nasar tries to give you as good an idea as possible to how important he was to mathematical research throughout much of the mid to late 20th century.

A Lot of math.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Not really. It had too much about math for me.

If you’ve listened to books by Sylvia Nasar before, how does this one compare?

I don't think I have.

Have you listened to any of Anna Fields’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't think I have.

Did A Beautiful Mind inspire you to do anything?

No.

Any additional comments?

It dwelled too much on the math involved and the theories. I enjoyed the portions about his life, per se, and his personality, and the basic accomplishments in the math/game theory field, but there was entirely too much, for me, about the math part so that I almost quit half-way through.

A masterpiece in research and storytelling

I am grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the enigmatic lives of Dr. Nash and Alicia and Eleanor, both remarkable women. This was an amazing story that far surpasses in truth and in depth the engaging but more superficial account as told in the movie.
For all of my praise for this book, there was a somewhat annoying flaw in the audio production.
The narrator was excellent. The editing, however, was not excellent as evidenced by at least a dozen times when several sentences were repeated.

A Flawed Geneus

This book details the relationships and accomplishments of a brilliant but deeply flawed and tragically fragile member of the elite of mathematics. He thrived in the uniquely tolerant world extreme math. But when math could not protect him from the “real” world, he became a

Eye Opening

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I learned things about Nash that were very enlightening. Truly, he has a beutiful mind.

Fascinating

If you could sum up A Beautiful Mind in three words, what would they be?

I never saw the movie so I had no basis for comparison except with other biographies that I've read. John Nash is a fascinating man and I appreciated this detailed look into his life. I think that the author treated him with respect but did not hold back on sharing the tragedy of his life. I love biographies and this one did not disappoint me.

Have you listened to any of Anna Fields’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, I have listened to several of her books but this is the first biography. I thought she did a great job.